With this we must conclude.[248] It would not be difficult to frame some theory from these results. I, however, here prefer to allow the simple facts to remain. As we have seen, the barrows in this part of the Forest, like all others of the same period, contained nothing, with the exception of the single stone-hammer, and the slinging pebbles, and the flake of flint, but nearly plain urns, full of only burnt earth, charcoal, and human bones. No iron, bronze, nor bone-work of any sort, was found, which would still further go to prove their extreme early age. Curiously enough, too, no teeth, bones, nor horn-cores of animals were discovered, as so often are in Keltic barrows.[249] Like all others, too, of an early date, there seem to have been several burials in the same grave, though this, as on Fritham Plain, is very far from being always the case. Some little regularity evidently prevailed with the different septs. Some, as at Bratley, placed the charred remains in a grave from two to three feet in depth; others, as at Butt’s Plain, on the mere ground. On the other hand, a good deal of caprice seems to have been exercised as to the materials with which each barrow was formed, and the way and the shape in which it was built, as also the arrangement of the charcoal. Further, perhaps, the different grades of life and relationship were marked by the presence and position of the urns. Whether this be so or no, it is certain that the mounds here which contained mortuary vessels were, as a rule, more elevated, and in nearly all instances placed by themselves. The fact, too, of the cube-shaped mound with its remains of four urns should be kept in mind. Little more can with certainty be said. The flint knives which have been picked up in the Forest, the stone hammer in the grave, the clumsy form and make of the urns, the places, too, of burial—in the wide furzy Ytene, in after-times the Bratleys, and Burleys, and Oakleys, of the West-Saxons—all show a people whose living was gained rather by hunting than agriculture or commerce. [Illustration: Barrows on Beaulieu Plain.] CHAPTER XVIII. THE ROMAN AND ROMANO-BRITISH POTTERIES. [Illustration: Wine-Flask, Drinking-Cups, and Bowls.] From time to time the labourer, in draining or planting in the Forest, digs down upon pieces of earthenware, whilst in the turfy spots the mole throws up the black fragments in her mound of earth. The names, too, of Crockle—Crock Kiln—and Panshard Hill, have from time immemorial marked the site of at least two potteries. Yet even these had escaped all notice until Mr. Bartlett, in 1853, gave an account of his excavations, and showed the large scale on which the Romans carried on their works, and the beauty of their commonest forms and shapes.[250] Since then both Mr. Bartlett and myself have at different times opened various other sites, and some short notice of their contents may, perhaps, not be without interest.